More can be done to deal with community disputes: Shanmugam

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The majority of Singapore's population lives in public housing and day-to-day living has thrown up a number of issues.

Law Minister K Shanmugam said more can be done in terms of legislation to deal with community disputes.

He noted that residents get frustrated when they don't know where to go or who to approach to get these issues sorted out.

He said: "The more frequent complaints are: my neighbour is playing music late into the night, I can't sleep; people upstairs are dragging their furniture, I can't sleep; the pets are making a lot of noise, barking away...

"(The issues) are not quite criminal in nature, so people get frustrated because (when) they go and see the police, police can't do much. They go and see the HDB. HDB is a landlord (and) unless it's a nuisance, it can't do much.

"You really don't want to go to the lawyers to sue for (these issues). So looking at the law today, it doesn't deal with these sorts of things. The question is: whether as a society, and it's not going to be easy, (we can) develop a new set of norms.

"I put up a Facebook posting. So now I'm answering all the questions on this - this is really not a Ministry of Law issue, but we are helping to coordinate with the other ministries to see how norms can be developed, (how) some laws can be structured. There is legislation in other countries that we can look at and adapt. That's what we're doing."